Monday, February 29, 2016

Adult Education Required

I’m still not quite sure what my son learned on a class trip to the Etzel Museum. I, on the other hand, learned quite a few things — most importantly, that there’s no monopoly on the lack of compassion in Israel’s body politic.

This, - "once, Revisionist and mainstream Zionism shared similar objectives" - is a bit obtuse. Basically, all Zionists shared similar objectives. It was the methods employed that divided them into parties and streams, as well as their willingness to compromise on the end goals.There is nothing "proto-fascist" in desiring the original borders of the Mandate as first set prior to the British betrayal by establishing, for a Saudi Arabian prince, the Emirate of Transjordan in 1922 after he invaded the area in November 1920, making trouble. Chaim Weizmann's borders of 1919 to the Peace Conference went up to the Litani and out to the Hejaz Raliway line. He was a fascist?If the writer by this - " All means, including premeditated violence." - means initated, he is wrong. The Irgun violence responded to and reacted to Arab terror violence that, in a political sense, began with the (later-to-be) Mufti's 1920 April riots.What is "self-conceived" bravery? Is the writer a "self-conceived editor"?Compassion is not at all an odd word in that context of Begin's speech. After 1929 Hebron, any compassion shown by Hebrew fighters should be recognized as a highly-morally charged order reacting to the snipings by Jaffa's Arabs since November 1947 which caused thousands to flee to Terl Aviv, not to mention the Jewish dead as a result.That 1948 NYTimes' letter by "a cluster of Jewish intellectual heavyweights" was very non-intellectual and nonsensical being based on a political outlook and ideological commitment that not only was wrong factually but proven, by history, i.e., peace with Egypt, Begin's parliamentary contirbutions to Israel's liberal democracy and such, to have been woefully wrong in its assumptions about his convictions, character and goals.Regarding Deir Yassin, after trying to overrun Givat Shaul in March 1914, its residents gunrunned in 1920, according to a British report in Bernard Wasserstein's "The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and Arab-Jewish Conflict, 1917-1929", killed Jews in 1929 in Givat Shaul and invaded Bet Hakerem and shot up the Jerusalem highway during 1936-39 and in March-April 1948, residents were sniping at Bet HaKerem and Bayit VeGan.And as for "We can agree that the Revisionists didn’t have moral correctness on their side.", well, if that is the case for the writer, how much "correctness" did the Arabs have in their opposition to a Jewish state in the people's historic homeland?

There is more, but I suggest after his visit to Bet Gidi, he should sit at the archives and library of Bet Jabotinsky at 38 King George St. in Tel Aviv.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.